Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet

by Frederick Marryat

As we journeyed along this chasm, we were struck with admiration at the strange and fanciful figures made by the washing of the waters during the rainy season. In some places, perfect walls, formed of a reddish clay, were to be seen standing; in any other locality it would have been impossible to believe but that they had been raised by the hand of man. The strata of which these walls were composed was regular in width, hard, and running perpendicularly; and where the softer sand which had surrounded them had been washed away, the strata still remained, standing in some places one hundred feet high, and three or four hundred in length.

Here and there were columns, and such was their architectural regularity, and so much of chaste grandeur was there about them, that we were lost in admiration and wonder. In other places the breastworks of forts would be plainly visible, then again the frowning turrets of some castle of the olden time. Cumbrous pillars, apparently ruins of some mighty pile, formerly raised to religion or royalty, were scattered about; regularity and perfect design were strangely mixed up with ruin and disorder, and nature had done it all. Niagara has been considered one of her wildest freaks; but Niagara falls into insignificance when compared with the wild grandeur of this awful chasm. Imagination carried me back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and the Edomite Paetra, and I could not help imagining that I was wandering among their ruins.

Our passage out of this chasm was effected with the greatest difficulty. We were obliged to carry our rifles and saddle-bags in our hands, and, in clambering up a steep precipice, Roche’s horse, striking his shoulder against a projecting rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet, falling upon his back. We thought he must be killed by the fall; but, singular enough, he rose immediately, shook himself, and a second effort in climbing proved more successful. The animal had not received the slightest apparent injury.

Before evening we were safely over, having spent five or six hours in passing this chasm. Once more we found ourselves upon the level of the prairie, and after proceeding some hundred yards, on looking back, not a sign of the immense fissure was visible. The waste we were then travelling over was at least two hundred and fifty miles in width, and the two chasms I have mentioned were the reservoirs, and at the same time the channels of escape for the heavy rains which fall upon it during the wet season.

This prairie is undoubtedly one of the largest in the world, and the chasm is in perfect keeping with the size of the prairie. At sun-down we came upon a water-hole, and encamped for the night. By this time we were entirely out of provisions, and our sufferings commenced.

The next day we resumed our journey, now severely feeling the cravings of hunger. During our journey we saw small herds of deer and antelopes, doubtless enticed to the water-courses by the recent rains, and towards night we descried a drove of mustangs upon a swell of the prairie half a mile ahead of us. They were all extremely shy, and although we discharged our rifles at them, not a shot was successful. In the evening we encamped near a water-hole, overspreading an area of some twenty acres, but very shallow. Large flocks of Spanish curlews, one of the best-flavoured birds that fly, were hovering about, and lighting on it on all sides. Had I been in possession of a double-barrelled gun, with small shot, we could have had at least one good meal; but as I had but a heavy rifle and my bow and arrows, we were obliged to go to sleep supperless.

About two o’clock the next morning we saddled and resumed our travel, journeying by the stars, still in a north-east direction. On leaving the Wakoes, we thought that we could be not more than one hundred miles from the Comanche encampment. We had now ridden much more than that distance, and were still on the immense prairie. To relieve ourselves from the horrible suspense we were in—to push forward, with the hope of procuring some provisions—to get somewhere, in short, was now our object, and we pressed onward, with the hope of finding relief.

Our horses had, as yet, suffered less than ourselves, for the grazing in the prairie had been good but our now hurried march, and the difficult crossing of the immense chasms, began to tell upon them. At sunrise we halted near a small pond of water, to rest the animals and allow them an hour to feed.

While stretched upon the ground, we perceived a large antelope slowly approaching—now stopping, now walking a few steps nearer, evidently inquisitive as to who, or rather what, we might be. His curiosity cost him his life: with a well-directed shot, Gabriel brought him down, and none but a starved man could appreciate our delight. We cooked the best part of the animal, made a plentiful dinner, and resumed our journey.

For three days more, the same dreary spectacle of a boundless prairie was still before us. Not a sign was visible that we were nearing its edge. We journeyed rapidly on till near the middle of the afternoon of the third day, when we noticed a dark spot a mile and a half ahead of us. At first we thought it to be a low bush, but as we gradually neared it, it had more the appearance of a rock, although nothing of the kind had been seen from the time we first came on the prairie, with the exception of those at the chasms.